ny
men repudiating God make a god of themselves. What kind of a being must
I be to know that "no message ever reached man from beyond the grave?"
How much must I know? Away back yonder in the past, in that "mere sealed
book," is a grand and glorious message from beyond the grave. But to our
friend it is a "sealed book."

What becomes of evolution?

What becomes of natural selection?

What becomes of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest?

THE MOTIVE THAT LED MEN TO ADOPT DARWINISM.

Before presenting the motive that led some of the great minds in
unbelief to advocate the Darwinian theory of creation, it will not be
amiss to remind the reader of the fact that the author of the "Vestiges
of Creation" presented the evolution theory about twenty years before
Mr. Darwin excited the public mind with the "hypothesis." Men who read
the "Vestiges" looked upon the assumption as a speculation, but refused
its adoption until Mr. Darwin, for the purpose of setting aside the
idea of separate creations of species, improved so far upon the
"Vestiges of Creation" as to repudiate design in nature. Having done
this, many of the leading spirits in skepticism, with a few great minds
in unbelief, at once accepted the wild speculation. Their motive may be
seen in the following quotations: "The eye was not made for the purpose
of seeing, or the ear for the purpose of hearing. Organisms, according
to Darwin, are like grape-shot, of which one hits something and the rest
fall wide." (Lay sermons, p. 331.) According to the above it appears
that Huxley regarded the evolution of species, as advocated by Darwin,
as identical with the old, effete idea that circumstances have
determined everything. Buchner says, "According to Darwin the whole
development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable minute and
accidental operations." This is the same idea. Carl Vogt says, "Darwin's
theory turns the Creator, and his occasional intervention in the
revolutions of the earth and in the production of species, without any
hesitation, out of doors, inasmuch as it does not leave the smallest
room for the agency of such a being." Haeckel says, "The grand
difficulty in the way of the mechanical theory was the occurrence of
innumerable organisms, apparently, at least, indicative of design." He
further says, "Some who could not believe in a creative and controlling
mind, to get over the difficulty of apparent design, adopted the idea of
a metap